


The Mind Killer

by nomwrites



Category: Charmed (TV 2018)
Genre: Case Fic, Family, Getting Together, Past Relationships Mentioned - Freeform, Team, everyone gets a chance to shine, non-powered mortals are badass too
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2019-10-24 17:32:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17708633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nomwrites/pseuds/nomwrites
Summary: An ancient evil decides it’s high time to say hello to the Charmed Ones.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written before 1x10 so this diverges significantly from current canon. Some details from future episodes might be included, but this is basically au.

“Is it dead?” Maggie asks, squinting through the thick smoke. The air smells of wet rot and burnt bacon, oily and heavy, nauseatingly worse than the fermented fish Mel had dared her to try once. She coughs, fighting down the urge to gag as it sticks to her nose and coats her throat. “It smells really dead.”

“Definitely dead,” Harry confirms. He presses his pocket square into her hand. “Here.”

Maggie chokes out a ‘thank you’ and all but smothers herself with it. It’s hard to breathe through the thick cloth (and it smells a little bit like Earl Gray tea) but right now that’s exactly what she wants. She’s never been more grateful for Harry’s fashion sense in her life. 

“Mel, Macy? Are you both alright?” Harry calls out, tense and watchful. He doesn’t seem to be as affected as Maggie but she’s seen every Jane Austen production in existence at least a dozen times so she’s something of an expert on reading uptight British men. Like Mr. Darcy, it’s all in the eyes and the corners of the mouth. The expression on Harry’s face at the moment is the exact same one he wears every time Mel mocks him by singing ‘God Save the Queen’. 

“We’re okay!” Mel’s voice comes through the smoke, loud and clear. “I mean, I’m never going to be able to smell bacon without wanting to puke again but we’re injury-free.”

“Um, actually… I think I need help.”

“Macy?” Three voices call in concern simultaneously. This time, Maggie can’t help gagging when she lowers the cloth from her mouth to speak, but she paces Harry steadily as he cuts through the smoke towards Macy’s voice. The haze is dissipating quickly, unnaturally fast in the still air of the attic, but the smell is lingering. The room is all but clear by the time they’ve crossed the length of it to see Mel helping Macy into a nearby chair. 

Their demon du jour had been studded with brightly colored quills all along its limbs and Maggie had laughed, thinking they looked silly. Now, with several of them stuck through Macy’s body, they look a lot more sinister. 

Maggie winces sympathetically; the skin at the base of each wound — the ones she can see at least — are red and blistering. 

“Shit, shit,” Mel curses, moving to the side to give Harry room to work. “I’m so sorry, Mace. I just assumed— I didn’t see—”

“It’s okay,” Macy breathes out. Though pale and shaking, she reaches out to pat Mel’s arm. Sweat pours down her face but her eyes are bright and clear. “I’ll be okay.”

“Yes, you will,” Harry says. He crouches down in front of Macy, examining her wounds. “Poisoning by Ashrak demon is usually fatal as the ingredients for a cure are hard to find. But,” he glances up and smiles reassuringly at Macy, “you do have a very handy Whitelighter at your service.” 

Harry holds his hands over Macy and a bright light engulfs her arm and torso. The quills disappear (or disintegrate — Maggie isn’t really sure how Harry’s powers work) and the wounds follow. Even Macy’s torn clothing gets fixed. The wounds in her leg get the same treatment and they all breathe a sigh of relief.

“Thanks,” Macy says, relaxing back into the chair. She waves off Mel’s attempt at another apology and takes a deep breath. Her face crumples in disgust. “Okay, breathing was a mistake. What the hell is that?”

“Yeah, seriously,” Maggie says, muffled behind the pocket square once again. “Vanquishings usually clean themselves up. It’s like one of the few perks of this job. What’s the dealio?”

“The _dealio_?” Mel repeats, eyebrows raised. In the time-old tradition of siblings giving each other a hard time, she gives Maggie a teasing smile, eyes dancing with amusement.

“Missy Elliott’s on my playlist,” Maggie huffs good-naturedly. “The woman was a revolutionary.”

Harry lights up. “Indeed. You know, I once had the pleasure of—”

“Great story, Harry!” Mel cuts in, clapping her hands like she’s trying to crush a bug between them. “You should save that for class or… for class. I’m sure your students will love it.” Harry shoots her a disgruntled look. Mel smiles back unrepentantly.

“I wouldn’t mind hearing about it,” Macy offers, looking like she’s fighting back a smile. “Over tea? I’ll make biscuits.” 

Harry smiles, inclining his head courteously. “That sounds lovely, Macy. At least someone around here appreciates a good story.”

Mel snorts.

“So,” Maggie says quickly, muffled but loud, before the bickering can start again. Mel and Harry have come a long way from where they started (it wouldn’t be too outlandish to call them something like best friends now) but Maggie thinks that sometimes they’re still a little too much like cats and dogs. “‘Dealio’ remember? And can we get out of here like soon-ish? Or at least crack a window? This has to be a health hazard.”

“Not yet,” Harry replies. He turns away from them and starts scanning the room. “Something must be here that doesn’t belong. Perhaps something left behind by the Ashrak like its quills. It shouldn’t be harmful — the spell you used was both powerful and thorough — but we need to find it nonetheless and get rid of it.”

“Great,” Mel mutters, sighing as she and Harry break off to start searching the room. Macy’s staring after them, looking a little lost in thought, so Maggie steps forward to offer her a hand up. “Come on, Mace.”

Macy jerks back like she’s been electrocuted, practically jumping out of her chair. The chair — and the free-standing lamp behind it — falls to the floor with a loud clatter. Maggie’s hand hangs in the air for a moment before she lets drops it back down to her side.

“What was that?”

“Have you found it?” 

“No, uh, sorry,” Macy stammers, setting the chair and the lamp upright. “I was lost in thought and Maggie surprised me. Sorry. We’ll help you guys look now.” She smiles apologetically in Maggie’s direction. 

Maggie gives her a thumbs up, busying herself with tying the pocket square securely over her nose and mouth. Her hands freed, she gets to work looking behind boxes, chairs, and ancient trunks. 

She doesn’t think about how carefully Macy walks around her to help Mel search under an old couch.

—————

It’s right by the door that she smells it.

Eyes watering, Maggie heads for a boxy table sitting just under the light switch. The smell increases in intensity with every step; foul stench so strong it’s easy to imagine an invisible corpse rotting two feet in front of her, just waiting to be tripped over. She freezes at the thought and figures it’s better to be careful than sorry and gross, so she turns to Harry and gestures for him to come over.

“Found it?” He asks, walking over quickly.

“Found something. Ugh—have you ever smelled anything worse?”

Harry comes to a stop beside her, studying the table. “Yes,” he answers, absently. 

Maggie looks at him in disbelief, but Harry steps forward before she can ask another question, nudging the table aside with a wave of his hand.

With the table out of the way, Maggie can see something vaguely round and green in the dim lighting. She gets her phone out to shine more light on it, revealing a sphere about the size of a baseball, smooth and glossy. When she moves the light around, an iridescent sheen shimmers over its surface. It looks a lot like a larger version of a pearl she saw in a shop window once and coveted ever since. 

Maggie stares at it, mesmerized, and decides she wants to keep it. 

It’s only when she feels Harry's hand on her arm that Maggie realizes she’s walked forward with her hand out, reaching. 

“ _Maggie, stop_ ,” Harry says, the note of urgent command in his voice halting her in her tracks. He lets go and moves to stand in front of her, blocking her way. Something behind Maggie seems to alarm him and his arm comes up, open hand directed somewhere over Maggie's shoulder. His usually placid face becomes lined with effort. “Whatever you saw, it wasn't real. I can sense the glamour on it, trying to pull me in, but it’s nothing more than a trap. I promise you,” Harry leans down and meets Maggie's eyes intently, “it looks exactly as revolting as it smells. Worse, frankly. It’s like—” Harry cuts himself off suddenly and presses his lips together so hard they go white. His arm starts visibly shaking. “I can’t hold your sisters back for much longer. _Wake up, Maggie._ ” 

The pocket square is jerked away from Maggie's face and she’s hit with a lungful of that burnt-rot smell. She stumbles back in surprise — somehow she’d completely forgotten about the stench. Bile rises at the back of her throat but the sting of it clears her head. Harry steps aside and Maggie can see the ugly thing for what it is now: exactly the size and color that she’d first seen but instead of a bright glossy sphere, it’s a pulsing blob of veiny, green… goo. 

“Ew,” Maggie mutters. But even as she stares at it in disgust, it’s blurring and changing back into the beautiful pearl she’d thought it was. The urge to reach out and take it blooms bright in her mind. “Uh, Harry, it looks different again and I feel like—”

“That's the glamour affecting you. Fight through it. It’s not dissimilar to your telepathy—don’t let its voice overwhelm you.”

“Right,” Maggie breathes, closing her eyes. Internal focus comes easier to her now — the result of months of meditation lessons and willpower developed by desperately trying not to fall asleep while Harry and her sisters sat around her, waiting to pelt her with paper balls if she did. She hones in on the insidious pull of the glamour and shunts it aside, the way she usually does in order to make the thoughts of others distinct in her mind. This time, when she opens her eyes, the revolting little thing holds form. “Ugh. Okay, I'm good. What do we do now? Should we destroy it or something?” 

Harry's taken a step behind her so Maggie turns to look at him, and sees her sisters still and unmoving a few feet away. Their eyes are glazed, features oddly slack; it’s an expression Maggie usually associates with people who are either drunk, high, or both. Their bodies, on the other hand, are tight with tension, like they’re straining hard against an invisible weight. And they are — Maggie can see the answering effort on Harry’s face. He’s giving everything he’s got to keep them in a telekinetic hold. 

“...I’m not sure,” Harry answers. Macy's hand twitches and his eyes narrow. “Containment might be the best option until we can figure out what it is. Then again, it seems to want us to touch it so perhaps destroying it is the right course of action. Whatever you do, do it fast. The only reason I've been able to hold your sisters this long is because of the glamour clouding their minds. They're not themselves. But I can’t—”

Maggie's eyes widen and she thanks Mel’s ‘voluntary’ self-defense classes for the reflex that allows her to pull Harry down with her — just in time for them to narrowly duck the table suddenly flying over their heads. Maggie doesn't see it crash into a wall on the other side of the room but she hears it loud and clear; it must have shattered a mirror on the way too. 

“What the hell?!” Maggie cries out in shock. 

“Oh dear,” Harry says, understated and very British. It’s the tone that Maggie’s learned to translate as ‘well fuck’. “Maggie, I need to divert all of my attention to Macy. Take Mel.”

Maggie looks up and there’s Mel right in front of her, so much closer than she’d been in the few seconds that Maggie wasn't looking. Behind Mel, Macy's managed to raise an arm but hasn’t moved otherwise; Maggie figures it’s a testament to Harry's intense focus, even if he’s had to let go of Mel in order to deal with the more pressing issue.

“Hey, sis,” Maggie tries, blocking Mel’s way. Mel doesn’t acknowledge her, simply shouldering her aside. Maggie yelps (she’s going to have a talk with Mel about wearing leather jackets with pointy metal shoulders later) but recovers fast enough to lunge after her sister and wrap her in a bear hug. “Listen! That thing isn’t what you think it is. It’s not—” 

_—thecandyapplemomgavemewheniwasfive—_

“No it’s not! That’s not an apple, Mel. It’s a big, smelly, green… Pimple! Do you really want to eat that? It’s gross.” 

**_Mel, stop!_**

But Mel might as well be deaf, in all senses of the word, because she completely ignores Maggie and keeps walking. She’s strong, moving forward in small increments despite Maggie digging her heels into the dusty floor as hard as she can. Growing desperate, Maggie plants her feet and pushes hard sideways, wrenching Mel with her straight to the ground. Her shoulder hits the floor, hard, and pain radiates down her arm, loosening her hold for a second. It’s enough for Mel to elbow her in the gut — “Ow!” — and start scrambling up, but not enough to completely shake Maggie who grabs Mel’s leg, causing her to trip, and the little tussle turns into a grappling match. Mel usually wins when they spar but Harry's right — she isn’t herself at the moment, movements sluggish and openly telegraphed, and Maggie pins her down in seconds.

Before Maggie can get her breath back, the attic door bangs open and Lucy comes storming through, stopping just inside the doorway. “It’s past midnight, for God's sake! What the hell is going on here?!” She demands, glaring at them with her hands on her hips. Her hair is in disarray and her pajamas are disheveled. There’s a pillow crease right across her cheek. “And why does it smell so bad?”

Maggie gapes at her, stunned at the unexpected interruption. 

“I thought you said the house was empty,” Harry hisses behind her. 

“It is!” Maggie insists. The entirety of Kappa was supposed to be at the Greek formal on the other side of campus. “It’s supposed to be. Lucy, what are you doing here? Why aren't you at the party with everyone else?”

“I… I wasn't feeling well. Maggie, what are you doing here? You know only Kappas are supposed to be in the house after hours,” Lucy says, bewilderment bleaching the anger from her voice. Her eyes dart around the room, taking in the odd tableau. 

Maggie tries to imagine what they look like to an outsider: her pinning a struggling Mel to the ground, one knee in Mel’s back, arm twisted at the elbow; Macy and Harry, mirrors of each other with their arms up, locked in a silent battle; and the attic itself, littered with destroyed furniture and shards of glass. Maggie has never wanted to read someone's mind more than in this moment. 

Then, inevitably: “Ew. What’s that?” 

“Lucy, don’t!” Maggie shouts, even as Lucy’s eyes glaze over and she realizes it’s too late. Lucy’s too close to the blob. There’s no time to stop her from touching it, no time to try to talk—

Maggie almost smacks herself in the head — they have plenty of _time_. 

“Mel, Lucy’s after your apple!” Maggie shouts, banking on that one-track mind. Mel’s time-stopping power doesn’t work on the rest of them but it definitely works on mortals, and unless Lucy’s been keeping some very unlikely secrets, it’ll work on her. 

Mel throws her free hand forward and Lucy freezes, bent awkwardly at the waist. Before Maggie can breathe out a sigh of relief, the blob explodes, emitting a wave of strong, foul-smelling wind. Thick green goo splatters every surface of the attic, dripping with a noxiously neon glow. Ironically, given the absolutely disgusting state of the room, the burnt-rot smell disappears soon after. 

Maggie looks around in horror, at Lucy who’s covered from head to toe, then down at herself and Mel and their ruined clothes. She’s wearing an old sweatshirt she’d cribbed off an ex-boyfriend so she’s not too broken up about it, but her shoes are a different story and Maggie doubts even Harry's magic can fix the mess. She refuses to think about the cold, slimy feeling making it’s way down her face. 

“What just happened?” Harry exclaims, mounting horror in his voice. “There’s something wet and slimy on my neck. Maggie, why is there something wet and slimy on my neck?”

“The blob just exploded. I don’t know why—”

“Blob?” Macy says, speaking for the first time since the glamour came over them. Maggie shoots a startled look behind her, and sees her eldest sister staring down at her shirt. The mess isn’t too bad considering everything else in the room, and when Macy looks up, she gives Maggie a bewildered little smile. “Good thing I hated this shirt.”

Maggie laughs in relief, smiling back. It’s good to see the keen focus back in her sister's eyes instead of the creepy glamoured haze, and speaking of… 

“Ow,” Mel mutters, as Maggie helps her up. She gives Mel an enthusiastic hug, heedless of the green goo covering them both. “O-kay. What was that for?”

“For not being a zombie anymore.”

“What?” A line of green slime falls from the ceiling and lands on the floor between them. Mel stares at it, face scrunched up in disgust. “Is that demon blood or something? Did we kill another one?”

“Yeah, what happened?” Macy echoes, examining a smear on her arm. “Last thing I remember, I was looking behind that wardrobe and then Maggie said she found something.”

“Well, first of all, it’s not blood,” Harry says, wiping at the back of his head with his pocket square, looking like he was wishing it was. Maggie has absolutely no idea how something so small could have so much of the stuff inside it, but the blast radius reaches towards the far wall and the back of Harry's suit is ruined with a big wet splotch of goo. “You and Macy were both glamoured by an utterly revolting green blob that, presumably, the Ashrak left behind. Independent of itself, I’d imagine, considering there’s absolutely nothing in our research that even alludes to this. You both went for it, thinking it was something you wanted. We stopped you and then...” Harry turns to Maggie, eyebrows raised, prompting her to continue the story. 

“Right, uh, and then Lucy came in.” Maggie points towards the doorway where Lucy’s still frozen mid-motion. Macy and Mel blink at her, mouths falling open in surprise. “So I tricked Mel into freezing her and the blob just… blew up.”

“Why did it—” Macy starts to ask but Mel cuts in and turns to Maggie with a frown. “I thought the house was supposed to be empty.”

“It was!” Maggie insists again, shooting a glare at Harry when it looks like he’s about to add something. She really doesn't need them teaming up to berate her. “Lucy said she wasn't feeling well. I’m sorry I didn't check, okay? I screwed up.”

Mel opens her mouth, hesitates, then nods at Maggie and says, “Okay.” She rubs at her elbow and gives Maggie a rueful look. “Good pin. You've been practicing, little sister.” 

“You were pretty out of it, so I’m not sure that counts.” Maggie grins anyway. “But thanks.”

“And getting Mel to freeze Lucy was quick thinking,” Harry adds. “Well done.”

Maggie puffs up a little, pleased. “But what do we do about her now? I mean, even if you erase her memories, there’s still all this stuff around. Can you, like, you know,” she waves her hand around at the mess, wiggling her fingers, but Harry only looks bewildered. “Clean her up? Or us?” A thought occurs and her eyes widen in alarm. “Oh my god, is this poisonous? Maybe that’s why it was luring us in. What if we're all about to drop de—”

Maggie stops mid-sentence, staring as the green ooze suddenly starts melting and disappearing from her arm. She looks down at her clothes and sweeps a hand through her hair — dry and clean, with no trace of residue left. The rest of the attic follows suit and soon, the only mess left behind is the one they’ve made of the broken furniture and the imprints of their soles left behind on the dusty floor. Maggie glances around and sighs, relieved, when she sees that Lucy is as ooze-free as the rest of them.

“I thought I was going to have to throw these shoes away,” Maggie says, clicking her heels in delight. “Thanks, Har!”

“Putting aside the fact that I don’t have the magical ability to disappear ooze,” Harry says, taking off his coat and inspecting it with a critical eye. “That wasn’t me. It vanished on its own.”

“Well that’s good, right?” Mel asks, giving her own jacket a thorough look-over. “SOP. Wait, no, SVP.”

“Standard Vanquishing Protocol?” Maggie guesses, amused.

Mel grins. “Exactly. A vanquish is a vanquish and we should be all clear.”

As one, they turn to Harry, looking at him expectantly. He tugs his coat back on, eyes narrowed in thought. “We should,” he answers slowly. “But I have a few questions.”

“What was it, why glamour us, why did it explode, and what was that substance exactly?” Macy finishes, listing off with her fingers. 

“Did you switch powers with Maggie?” Harry teases. Some emotion passes through Macy’s eyes but it goes by too fast for Maggie to catch it. “But yes, and of those questions, I only have a hypothesis for one. The catalyst for the explosion — it could have been Mel’s power interacting with it. Touch trigger, even if the touch was magical and not physical.”

Macy nods. “That makes sense. We know the glamour wanted us to take… whatever it was, wanted us to touch it. Does that mean it was supposed to explode? Just waiting for someone to trigger it?”

“Perhaps.” Harry shrugs, glancing at Lucy. “With such a strong lure, the intention may have been to spread the substance to as many living subjects as possible — which is worrying, for obvious reasons. I’ll have to consult with the Elders immediately.”

“Okay,” Mel says. “Then let’s get out of here. I’m supposed to go over to Niko’s.”

“Actually, if you could all hold off on plans for tonight… It might be best to remain isolated from the general public. We may be affected in some way.”

“My girlfriend isn’t the general public.”

“Niko is mortal.” Harry holds his hands up placatingly when Mel frowns thunderously at that. “I’m not saying she’s not capable — I know she is. But if something magically untoward happens, it may be beyond her abilities to handle. Give me a few hours to look into it. Please.”

Mel sighs, still looking displeased, but nods anyway. “Fine.”

“I’ll call Galvin and let him know we’ll have to work online,” Macy says.

“It’s a quarter to one. Isn’t that way past overtime?” Maggie says, then grins. “Or is ‘work’ a euphemism?”

“Euphemism?” Macy asks, staring blankly at Maggie. It takes a second before her eyes widen and the curtain drops. “Oh! _No._ No no no. Uh, definitely not.”

Maggie laughs. “It’s okay, Mace, I was joking. We believe you. Right, guys?” 

Harry and Mel nod obligingly.

“Galvin and I aren’t— We’re not…” And Maggie is sorry for teasing her now because Macy looks about as uncomfortable as she’s ever seen her. Before Maggie can apologize, Macy clears her throat and seems to pull herself together. Her voice is steady when she says, “Lots of paperwork and planning for the new semester since the lab’s expanding. He’s been acting as my second which helps, but we still have a lot of work to do before deadlines come up.”

“Don’t remind me about deadlines, please,” Harry says, heaving a dramatic sigh. “I might as well live at the office these days.”

“And you haven’t even looked at my thesis draft yet. You’re slacking, _Professor Greenwood_.” Mel smirks, eyes twinkling mischievously. “Maybe you should give up the chair to someone with better time management.”

Harry looks to the heavens — or the cobweb-infested ceiling — the very picture of a put-upon academic. “If you’d finished it last week when it was due, I would have had time.”

“If we weren’t in the middle of saving the world last week, I would have.”

Harry and Mel try to stare each other down but they don’t even make it to three seconds before bursting into laughter. Macy, whose grin is wide and grateful, meets Maggie’s eyes and they both shake their heads, chuckling at their antics.

“Alright, alright,” Harry says, an echo of laughter still in his voice. “Let’s wrap this up so we can get on with our work. And you,” he looks at Maggie, “still need to revise for your exams.”

“ _Study_ , Har, not revise” Maggie says, rolling her eyes. “Which I’m doing, by the way. I’m hitting the books at home and I’ve lined up a study group at school.”

“Good. Let me take care of Ms. Hall and then I’ll teleport you all back to the house.”

Maggie watches him pick his way around the debris on the floor, then looks at Lucy, concerned. “We’ll keep an eye on her, right?”

“Of course.” 

“Tell me when,” Mel says. 

Harry comes to a stop in front of Lucy, hand held out in front of him. “Now.”

Time restarts and Lucy blinks, gasping in surprise. The white light that washes over her confused face is blinding and bright. 


	2. Chapter 2

Maggie’s phone chimes with a message just as she’s about to face-plant on her laptop in exhaustion. She swipes at the screen to read it, yawning loudly.

_The Elders have divined that the object we encountered was a Hellhound scent marker. Used to track down escaped souls and oath breakers. For what purpose it was left behind is unclear; but as none of us have made devil-deals, are in purgatory or are in a hell dimension, we appear to be safe. Get some rest. I’ll see you all tomorrow._

Maggie sends back a thumbs-up emoji and untangles herself from her bedclothes, staggering towards Mel’s room. “Mel,” she calls, knocking on her sister’s door, hopping a little on the cold floor. They’ve got the thermostat on high, but the night has cooled considerably and Maggie wishes, in a vaguely sleepy way, that she’d worn pants to bed instead of shorts.

Mel, in contrast, is fully dressed when she opens the door, jacket and keys in hand. “Got Harry’s text. I’m going over to Niko’s.”

Maggie blinks. “It’s… I don’t actually know what time it is, but it’s gotta be really late. Or really early.”

“It’s 2:30. But better late than never, right?”

“Wait, wait.” Maggie pushes into Mel’s room and pulls her sister in, closing the door behind them. “I wanted to talk to you about something first.”

Mel crosses her arms, tapping her fingers in a rapid staccato. “Make it fast, ‘lil sis. I really gotta go.”

“Well I wanted to talk to you when we got home, but you were on the phone with Niko for so long—”

“And you were on the phone with Parker,” Mel retorts, eyebrows raised.

“Hey, hey, don’t look at me like that. We’re, like, so over. Just friends now. He’s traveling the world trying to find himself and I’m like his Yoda. Or Obi-Wan? Whatever. Look… ,” Maggie trails off, suddenly unsure about what she’s about to say. Maybe she’s just being paranoid and imagining things that aren’t there, assigning meaning to coincidence—but her mind flashes to the Kappa house and she pushes on. “Have you noticed Macy being kinda weird lately?”

Mel’s eyebrows climb higher. “No? But I’ve been busy with my thesis draft so… Weird how?”

“Distracted. Lost in her thoughts more than usual.”

“We’ve all been pretty distracted. It’s getting to end of term and we all missed a lot of work last week. Hell, I caught Harry staring off into space in his office after a marathon grading session. He was drinking cold tea, Mags. Cold tea! I think he lost the will to live for about five minutes. And Macy’s still adjusting to her responsibilities as lab supervisor. She’s probably exhausted.”

“Yeah, I guess…” Maggie says. Shifting, she leans back against the door, taking comfort in having something solid behind her. “But it’s not just that. She’s been skittish too. Like, really touchy about her personal space. She practically jumped out of her skin in the Kappa attic when I tried to help her up. And the other day, I tried to pass her some toast but she almost dropped the plate when she saw how close our hands were. It’s like she thinks I have the plague or something.”

“I don’t know. She’s probably just really wired.”

Maggie wants to ask: _Then why is she only doing it to me?_

But it’s been a while since her insecurities have been laid out in the open and a year of fighting evil has given her the kind of self-possession she never thought she’d have—she’s reluctant to give up even a little bit of it now. Even in front of the sister who’s watched her grow up. Or maybe _especially_ in front of the sister who’s watched her grow up.

So instead she says, “Yeah, you’re probably right. You know what? I think exam pressure is getting to me. Thanks, Mel.” Maggie pushes off the door and opens it. “I’ll go check if Macy’s seen the text yet. Drive safe to Niko’s!”

“Wait,” Mel calls, catching up to Maggie and walking with her down the hallway. “If it’s really bothering you, why don’t you just talk to Macy about it? We promised we’d tell each other everything, didn’t we? And you’re her favorite, anyway.”

A smile tugs at the corner of Maggie’s mouth. “No, I’m not.”

“Yeah, you are. So talk to her.”

Maggie nods, not promising anything, grateful when Mel doesn’t push. Her sister disappears down the stairs with a wave, excitement animating her face as she takes the steps two at a time.

The past year has been hard on all of them, but if there’s one thing Maggie’s grateful for no matter what else has happened, it’s that Mel and Niko have, against all odds, found their way back to each other.

Taking the stairs more carefully, Maggie pads toward the kitchen where Macy had set-up shop as soon as they’d gotten home. Tapping sounds float down the hallway, almost eerie against the silence of the rest of the house. Maggie turns the corner and there’s Macy sitting at the kitchen table, papers strewn around her open laptop. Her face is lit up by the glow of the screen, shadows dark around the planes of her face and the bags under her eyes.

“Hey, Mace.”

“Hey,” Macy replies, grimacing as she takes a sip from her mug. “I always forget how disgusting cold coffee is until the next time I have it. Was that Mel going out the door?”

“Yup. She’s going to Niko’s. Have you checked your phone yet? Harry sent a text.”

“He did?” Macy rummages around the table, eventually digging her phone out from under a pile of folders. “Dammit. Battery’s dead. What did he say?”

Maggie yawns, plopping into a chair across from Macy. “He says the goo was some kind of hellhound scent marker, but that we’re safe since none of us have made any devil-deals and we’re not in a hell dimension or in purgatory.”

“Great! Then I can still go to the lab and finish up before morning. I feel guilty about leaving Galvin the bulk of the work. Last time I called in, he looked like he was about to pass out.”

“Well, you don’t look much better,” Maggie quips, grinning when Macy gives her a mock offended look. She helps Macy gather some of the papers together, sticking to the ones out of easy reach. “Just being honest, sis. Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”

“Hundred percent. I’m tired but wide awake, I promise.”

Watching Macy organize her things together is bewildering. Whatever order she uses to put one pile of paper into another is particular and meticulous. At one point she lays three folders open, shuffling documents here and there, making notations written in a script Maggie can’t make heads or tails of even though she’s pretty sure it’s in English.

A year ago, Maggie would have been intimidated—yet another example of how everyone in her family is overwhelmingly more capable and accomplished than she is. Now, she only feels fondness for her sister’s quirks, anticipating the day when she can move with the same sure knowledge.

But sisterly feelings aside, Maggie is also keenly aware that the entire time her sister moves around the table, shoving one thing after another in the briefcase Maggie and Mel had gotten her jointly as a present to celebrate her promotion, Macy doesn’t come within an arm’s length of touching her. Acceptance of Maggie’s assistance seems to come with the unspoken, unacknowledged caveat that anything she picks up, she simply puts down on the table, near enough for Macy to take without fear of contact.

It’s bewildering in an entirely different way.

Maggie bites her tongue and decides this isn’t the time to talk to her sister, after all. It’s too late in the night after an exhausting day. She’s got a social media ban after midnight for a reason: too easy to slip-up and say things she might not mean to say.

“Okay, I’m off. Good night! Get some rest and lock up behind me, okay?”

“Will do,” Maggie replies dutifully. It isn’t until she hears the door close behind Macy that Maggie gets up from the table to lock up as promised.

Padding back to bed, Maggie hopes she’s tired enough to fall into a dreamless sleep.

 

———————

 

Guess not, Maggie thinks, as she opens her eyes into a familiar scene.

She’s falling through the air, the sky above her wide and encompassing. She used to love these dreams when she was a kid, when she’d thought they were a trip — her imagination flying wild and carefree and it had been like all the times she’d jumped gleefully from the dock of the old lake house her dad used to take her and Mel to. She remembers the way she’d gasp as she jerked awake before hitting the ground, exactly the same way that first shocked breath would leave her lungs when she hit the cold water. They’re less fun now that she’s older and there’s no Mom waiting with a mug of hot chocolate on the other side of it.

Whatever. It’s a dream she’s had a thousand times. In that way, it’s familiar and comforting. At least there aren’t any hidden monsters lurking in the air and she’s about as far away from the depths of Tartarus as it’s possible to get. The world is bright, bathed in sunlight, and the black sky is just beyond her fingertips.

_Wait._

_Black?_

The drowsy haze in her mind clears a little and she looks around properly for the first time.

Maybe not such a familiar dream, after all.

For one thing, it’s raining men _and_ women. Maggie grimaces at the stupid joke and promises herself never to tell Mel about it. But it’s true — appearing like ghosts through a ceiling of inky smoke, first translucent and then as solidly vivid as Maggie’s own hand, several people burst into existence right in front of her.

Mel’s closest, just beyond arm’s reach, straining to wrap a hand around Niko’s arm. A little higher up, Harry’s shouting something but no sound makes it through the deafening roar of the wind rushing past. Furthest from Maggie is Macy, ashen and unmoving. Galvin is right next to her, terror on his face as he screams into the wind.

Why her brain has decided to summon her family to keep her dream-self company, she’s not sure. But she thinks about them often enough, for one reason or another, that their presence in her subconscious isn’t a complete surprise.

Why Niko and Galvin are in her dream, on the other hand, is an entirely different story. Maggie wonders if she’d knocked her head during the fight against the Ashrak and just didn’t notice. Because while dreams rarely make sense or follow sane logic, her brain conjuring two people she’s barely associated with in the past year is just too weird.

Maggie wonders if she’s been secretly wishing for a slumber party—it would explain the sleepwear most of them are wearing, though not why Macy and Galvin are still in their workclothes, lab coats flapping in the wind.

Harry seems to have realized they can’t hear him and has resorted to waving madly until Maggie turns back to him. His pajama top is missing, she notes with detached bemusement, as if he’d been interrupted in the middle of dressing. It’s a weird little detail but she just shrugs it off because he looks frantic, pointing at something behind her insistently. Maggie twists to look over her shoulder and there’s Lucy, flailing wildly, closest to the ground.

Or maybe it’s not Lucy that Harry is pointing at because now Maggie can see what’s below them: the most jaw-dropping landscape she’s ever seen—in dreams or reality.

Massive snow-capped mountains line the horizon like an impenetrable wall. Beyond them, fading fast from view as Maggie’s descent takes her below the peaks, an endless sea of churning black water. And below her, like the frosted panes of a stained glass window, frozen lakes line a serpentine path of golden deserts and vibrantly green plains. It’s a tapestry that makes no sense at all—and neither does the fact that she can even see it, Maggie realizes, as she remembers the sky and takes a quick look back.

It really is black as ink, the color of the deepest part of night, but the world around her is bright enough to be high noon. There’s no sun, no stars, or even a moon. There is no source of light anywhere that she can see.

“Huh,” Maggie mutters, the wind carrying the word away the instant it leaves her mouth.

Her dream unfolds: falling, falling, and more falling. The wind lashes at her bare arms and legs like icy whips, as visceral as if she were in a vision conjured by Harry’s training orb, but she feels nothing except a kind of awed glee as the grassy plain below her grows closer and closer. She doesn’t want to watch Lucy hit the ground, but she’s pretty sure this isn’t a nightmare and her dreams have never been violent. Maggie waits for the scene to change or for the dream to stop.

As if on cue, Lucy freezes in mid-air like someone’s hit the pause button, a couple dozen feet before impact. A familiar twist of space and light engulfs her, and barely a second later, Harry’s setting Lucy down on the grass where she collapses to her knees.

Maggie closes her eyes, relieved, and waits for the sudden stop—her ticket back to her own bed. She’s ready to leave this very pretty but weird-ass dream behind.

Two points of something shockingly warm press against Maggie’s chin—a ghost of a touch—there and gone again within the span of a second.

_MAGGIE!_

Maggie’s eyes snap open and she jerks in surprise, swaying dangerously close to an unbalanced spin. She doesn’t understand why Harry’s materialized in front of her for a moment. She’d been ready to leave, to wake up with a gasp back in her own bed, but her subconscious seems to be on a different track.

Harry’s arm is stretched between them, hand straining towards her as far as he can. She realizes now that he must have managed to graze her face with his fingertips. She only wishes he hadn’t yelled so loud. The sound has gone right through her ears, and into her head—it’s definitely ringing.

Behind him, Maggie sees the ground growing closer, prompting her to finally take the hand desperately trying to reach her—even in a dream, she’d never put Harry through the ordeal of losing one of his charges.

Harry pulls her close, folding his arms around her tightly.

_Hold on!_

With a start, Maggie realizes that Harry hadn’t spoken out loud when he’d called her name, and he isn’t speaking out loud now. For the first time since she fell out of the sky, Maggie’s stomach drops.

Her powers have never worked in dreams; not once in all the time she’s had them. For them to work now means—

The world twists into a blaze of white light, ferrying them through whatever dimension angels travel through. In the fraction of a second that they’re removed from the world, a whistling melody swirls around them, something Maggie’s come to associate with Whitelighter magic. Her bare feet touch the ground and Harry moves to let go, but Maggie grips his arm in a sudden rush of panic.

“Is this real?” Maggie asks, eyes wide. She shakes Harry’s arm. “Harry, is this real?”

“I’m sorry—what?” Harry’s breathless when he speaks, frowning in confusion. He shakes his head, trying to pull his arm away. “Tell me later. I need to go get Mel. The mortals will unfreeze but she’s getting too close to the ground.”

_Get Mel, freeze the others. Macy! What the bloody hell— Why— No time no time. Buggering fu—_

Harry disappears, leaving Maggie holding onto empty air. Her hands are clammy and cold. The air is thin, suddenly, and she can’t breathe deep enough.

Oh God. Not a dream. She’d almost watched Lucy die. She could have died herself.

Maggie looks up at the sky, hands over her mouth, and watches her sisters fall.

Thankfully, Mel is a lot more alert than Maggie had been, grabbing for Harry as soon as he teleports below her. Harry staggers when they reappear, gasping for breath; Mel is pale and frantic. But there’s no time to check up on either of them because Harry doesn’t even pause this time, simply teleports away without a word once he finds his footing. Mel, similarly, is on the ball, though she spares enough attention to use one hand to squeeze Maggie’s. With the other, she re-freezes Niko and Galvin.

Up in the air, Macy is worryingly unresponsive to Harry’s attempts to reach her. She doesn’t move for a tense few seconds, the pair of them getting ever closer to the ground. Maggie forgets to breathe and beside her Mel stiffens, tense as a bowstring. Then Macy jerks, head swinging wildly around before she seems to spot Harry. Finally, she reaches back and with the likely application of telekinesis, Harry’s descent slows. Macy falls into him and they disappear with a flash of light.

An instant later, they’re in front of Maggie and air rushes back into her lungs. But the relief is short-lived because one look at the pair has both her and Mel running forward to brace them before they fall over.

Teleporting so many people in such a short amount of time must be pushing Harry to his limit — he’s white as chalk, panting like he’s just run a marathon.

(Except maybe that’s not a good metaphor because Maggie’s run a marathon with him before and he’d been annoyingly energetic all the way to the finish line.)

If he were mortal, she’d say he’s about to pass out. But he’s not and Maggie’s only ever seen him unwillingly unconscious from being physically knocked out — or drunk — so this is familiar territory. He’ll recover once he’s rested.

It’s Macy who’s worrying her. Unlike Harry, there’s no obvious explanation or injury that points to a cause of distress. But she’s shaking like a leaf anyway, trembling so hard that her lab coat flutters nervously around her legs. Her breathing is shallow and uneven, muffled against Harry’s neck. And around his back, her grip is so tight that the points of contact bloom bright red against his bare skin.

“Mace?” Mel reaches out, tentatively putting a hand on Macy’s shoulder. “Hey, are you okay?”

In the jumbled stream of thoughts that Maggie’s picking up from their little huddle— _MaceMacyokayissheMacyIneedto—_ Macy’s voice is glaringly silent next to the distinct voices of Mel’s and Harry’s concern. Instead, smothering the familiar presence of her eldest sister, there is a sense of overwhelming fear.

“I think she’s in shock,” Maggie says, trying to peer into Macy’s face. “I can feel her but not hear her. She’s afraid. Like— _really_ afraid. What’s going on?”

“She’s physically uninjured but I think… Help us down,” Harry says, finally, and they do, until Harry and Macy are both kneeling on the ground. Harry tries to pull back, but Macy refuses to be drawn out. “Macy, listen to me,” he implores gently, in a voice that should be faint with exhaustion—if the pallor of his complexion and the way he still can’t quite catch his breath is any indication—but is instead strong with purpose. “We’re alright. We’re on the ground now. You can feel it under your knees, can’t you? The grass is damp and cold. It must have rained recently. It’s, well, to be honest, terribly uncomfortable. I think I’m kneeling on a rock.”

A chuckle, wobbling and surprised, but there all the same. Some of the worried tension dissipates and in the short silence that follows, the rigid line of Macy’s stiff, trembling body gradually softens into something more relaxed. Finally, Macy sighs and pulls away from Harry, sitting back on her heels as she rubs both hands over her face. “I’m sorry. I—I don’t know what happened.”

Harry shakes his head. “You’ve no need to apologize. I know what it’s like.”

“What it’s like?” Macy repeats, brow knotted in confusion.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Mel says, grimacing apologetically as she stands. “And I definitely want to continue this conversation, but Mace, if you’re feeling better, I could use your help to get them down.” She points at the sky.

“Oh!” Macy exclaims, springing to her feet. Though still a little pale and shaky, there’s no mistaking the determined look in her eyes. “Right. Okay.”

“No, wait,” Harry says, bracing his hands on the ground to push himself up. “I can do it.”

Knowing what’s coming, Maggie’s ready and waiting when his legs give out immediately. He’s taller and heavier than her but Macy’s telekinesis wraps around them both and Maggie only has to prop him against her side as they sink back to the ground. “Nope. You were orbing us all night hunting the Ashrak too. You’re done for now, Har.”

“Yeah, just sit your ass down,” Mel smirks. “We got this.”

“I’ve no doubt,” Harry says, breathy and slow but smiling brightly enough for Mel to sigh in exasperation and mutter, “You’re ruining it.”

Macy reaches down to give Harry’s shoulder a brief squeeze, absently brushing a flop of hair back from his forehead before she steps away. “Thanks for catching us.” Nodding at Mel, she raises her hands towards the frozen figures above them. “Let’s do it.”

With Macy and Mel working in combination, alternately using their powers to reduce Niko and Galvin’s velocity, it doesn’t take long before they’re both safe on the ground. Pale as a ghost, Niko hugs Mel tightly as soon as she’s within reach. Galvin drops to all fours, digging his fingers into the damp earth, muttering, “ _Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god…_ ”

“Galvin?” Macy says, crouching next to him. There’s no trace of her earlier distress, hands steady, if a little hesitant, when she reaches out to put a comforting hand on his hunched back.

Galvin whips his head around. “Macy! What just happened? One minute we were in the lab and then— Did I fall asleep? Am I dreaming?”

“Nope,” Maggie says, fielding the question with false cheer. “Definitely not.”

Galvin stares at her for a moment, then slumps miserably. His gaze flickers to Maggie’s side, to Harry, who gives him a friendly wave. Strangely, Galvin seems to come to himself at this, expression cooling as he presses his lips together and shakes his head. Straightening, he brushes his hands clean on his lab coat and slowly gets back on his feet. “So I guess this is some kinda magic—”

“ _Excuse me_.”

Maggie freezes. Then winces and turns around.

“Excuse me,” Lucy says again, eyebrows raised, hands on her hips—a mirror of Maggie’s mistake at the Kappa house come back to haunt her. Lucy’s hair is puffed around her head, whipped into a tangled mess by the freefall. Around her knees, streaks of mud and grass stain the fabric of her pajama bottoms. Despite the general disarray, she looks bewilderingly poised. “Could someone please tell me what in _Beyoncé's name_ is going on here?"

Here it is, Maggie thinks. The moment of truth.

There’s no choice now. Dropped into some kind of Middle-Earth-gone-crazy dimension, there is no excuse plausible enough to explain this away and Maggie’s got a feeling that leaving this place won’t be as simple as Harry just orbing them out. After everything Lucy’s gone through, it’s almost a relief to realize that the option of erasing her memories is currently moot.

Besides, with Niko and Galvin reacting well to the whole magical shebang, she’s hopeful.

Maggie opens her mouth, ready to launch into a speech she’s been half preparing since they broke Alastair’s mind-control on his victims, but before she can get a word out, Lucy gasps, eyes going comically wide, jaw dropping open.

“Is that—?” A trembling finger, perfectly manicured, points toward the mountainous horizon. “Is that what I think it is?”

“ _Oh hell no_ ,” someone says; Maggie barely registers the words, let alone who the voice belongs to, busy as she is staring agape at the massive shape outlined against the dark sky. The shape soars on spiked wings bigger than 737s and lands with a rumbling shake on a distant peak. Giant slabs of black rock shift on the mountainside, shearing off under the impossible weight.

Lightning cracks overhead, chasing the shadows away from the restless silhouette for one terrifying second. In the wake of the thunder that roars across the plain, loud enough to rattle teeth, no one speaks. Or breathes.

Mel, unsurprisingly, is the first to stir from the stunned silence. “So...” she says, “Is it just me or is that a fucking dragon?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of this chapter was written before I’d seen 1x11 and beyond, but I’ve watched the whole season since so while the outline of this story and the characters involved in it won’t change, I may take some details from canon from time to time. Still mostly AU though.
> 
> A little housekeeping in this chapter because it was too awkward to fit in the text: 
> 
> Unlike Leo in the OG, Harry finds it tricky to orb moving bodies (in “Kappa Spirit” 1x06, he only teleports Lucy when she was frozen mid-air). He can only move from point to point so catching his target means predicting where they’ll be ahead of where he last saw them. Since this method is too risky and prone to error, he solves this problem by simply orbing a few feet ahead of where he thinks they’ll be and just waits for them to reach him. In freefall, this doesn’t quite work out. He has a strong enough version of telekinesis to move bodies, of course, but his magic is pretty drained from all the action of the previous day and hasn’t recovered enough.
> 
> ETA (June 26): I made some minor grammatical edits on lines that bothered me. Nothing that affects the story.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not sure how long this will be yet, and the updates will be a bit slow as I’m not a fast writer, but it will be finished. Please refrain from spoiling episodes past 1x10, if you can. I mean, it’s not a big deal (and I’ve already been spoiled on some things) but I’m waiting for the season to finish before watching the rest of the episodes. That said, comments and constructive critiques are welcome.


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